The Male Beta Associate: Soft Hands, Hard Life

How to Identify a Male Beta Associate (MBA):

1. Soft hands. Have you ever reached out to shake hands with a man, and got caught off guard by how soft his hand was? Kind of like how you would imagine Pop 'n Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy's hand to be? That man is an MBA.

2. Did not go to a great law school. Because if he did, he would use his prestigious law school to redeem his entire self-worth, which would make him an as*hole, and MBAs are not as*holes.

3. Is always wearing that buttery soft leather bomber jacket that makes him look like a sofa. It's too big, it looks literally like a poop, and it smells like a taxi.

4. Wilts in social situations. Such as seeing someone walking towards him from the other end of a long hallway, and not knowing where to put his eyes/hands/mind/tongue for the duration of that long walk towards this other living being. After the two pass by each other the MBA feels relief/shame/exhilaration/movement.

5. Asian flush. He's not even asian (because really how many male asian lawyers are there) but he still has their disease. When he drinks, his face takes on a tender pink hue, like the inside of a magnificent conch. Press his face up to your ear, and you will hear what sounds like the beckoning of a trio of sea sirens, but really it's just him drunkenly murmuring, "Closer, closer, oh closer still."

6. Pear shaped. He doesn't start out this way, of course. During orientation, he was uniformly oblong, with soft sloping shoulders. But by his third year of sitting at his desk, his lower body, given the freedom to roam in the dark wilderness under his desk, expands. Timidly reaching, reaching just a little bit further, an inch at a time, building soft little outposts of tissue around his hips until one fine wintery day, as he is making his way through Times Square to his Hell's Kitchen studio, a wannabe stand-up comedian shouts to him from behind, "Hey lady, ya like comedy?"

7. And here is his departure email (I'll point out the MBA behavior in paren):

From: XXXX

Sent: Friday, XXXX, 2005 3:56 PM

To: All NY

Subject: My Departure

Today is my last day at XXXX. As at least some of you know (Everyone knows the departure email template is "As most of you know," but the MBA is so unsure of himself that he needs to tinker with precedent, to reduce its strength so that there is no way he could accidentally perjure himself with too much self-assurance... this is also why your legal research never excites the partners, MBA!), I'm going to be practicing plaintiff's side personal injury law at XXXX, a ten lawyer firm (MBAs never know which details are impressive, which ones make you sound like a lame young brother tagging along) started by my grandfather. (MBAs are not very professionally mobile because they are horrible at interviews; working for the family business solves that problem.) I've been privileged during my time here to work with a number of really outstanding lawyers and paralegals, and to make some terrific friends. Thank you all for a great experience.